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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23197945">Life isn’t perfect</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Perfect Timeline [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Life Is Strange (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Kidnapping, Max needs some help, Nathan isn't a dick, Other, Well Jefferson is death but noone likes him anyway</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:02:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,313</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23197945</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She did it! After many Timelines Max did the impossible: create a perfect timeline. Jefferson is death, Nathan never even started working with him, Rachel and Chloe are both alive and happy together. She should be happy right? Maybe she would if Chloe didn’t hate her, if the sound of a camera wouldn’t scare her and if only she wouldn’t see Jefferson smiling at her everywhere she goes.</p><p>OR</p><p>We take a look at Max’s Life in a perfect yet (for her) not so perfect Timeline</p><p>(Also includes a headcanon about memories from other Timelines)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Perfect Timeline [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667797</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Life isn’t perfect</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is angsty and I am sorry but I pretty much had the idea for this fic/that Timeline since Before the Storm came out back in the day. So I had to write it now that I can.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I should be happy right? So why aren’t I?</p><p>That was the question Max asked herself every morning when she woke up and went to her classes, her grades were great as well, after all, she went through the same months over and over again, she didn’t need to learn anymore, has reached a point where she could go through life mostly without rewinding and still knew how thinks would play out.</p><p>Max wasn’t even sure how many tries it took to get this timeline, in the beginning it was one and the same week, over and over and over. And that had already felt like an eternity on its own, then she had started the whole school year new, and she stopped counting after 20 Timelines there, and she knew there were way more than another 20 or even 40 after that.</p><p>Some Timelines were shorter than others, sometimes she used a Timeline to do nothing but life and make the best out of it, to take a break and think what she would do next. Max wasn’t even sure if she could life outside of that time span, she stopped thinking about the future a long time ago and now that she did her thoughts about it weren’t that good either.</p><p>Max had created the perfect world and yet, she wasn’t happy.</p><p>Chloe knew she was back, Rachel knew she was that Max, and both of them hated her. She tries to avoid Joyce and to keep her meetings with David to a minimum.</p><p>Even when he tried to ask her about Jefferson, Max was glad when he came into the room like planned and took his gun, but people were worried about her, at least those who knew and Max often asked herself if there had been a better way to get rid of Jefferson, but she doesn’t dare to try it, she worked so hard for this.</p><p>Max talks to basically nobody in school, she decided being alone was easier for her, though sometimes she missed Warren and Kate, but she doesn’t think she would be able to have normal friendships with anyone anymore. Not after she loved Chloe more than anything else in this world, not after she let them die for Chloe.</p><p>Sometimes, when it is dark in her bedroom, or when she walks through the hallways, Max sees Jefferson with his camera, smiling at her, taking a photo of her. He was never directly in her sight, it was like these shadows you sometimes think you see in the corners of your vision, and when you try to look at it directly, it is gone.</p><p>When she wants to take photos,she needs a few seconds to calm herself down, to tell herself to steady her hands before taking a shot. When others take pictures she tries her best not to freeze, but sometimes it can’t be helped.</p><p>Her Photos, she noticed, as well as her teachers, had a different feeling to them, before they seemed to be bright, happy. Now they seem to reflect her feelings of isolation, loneliness and some seem to show a bitter-sweet reality. Her teachers as well as anyone else who knows thinks it is because of Jefferson, the truth is that her photos had been like this for many timelines already. She wondered if one of the other Chloe's noticed and if they did, why they didn’t say anything.</p><p>Sometimes, Max gets scared of death, of the future and then those thoughts, she feels so guilty about it, how she doesn’t have to become old and die, she simply can start a new timeline.</p><p>Other times, when she stands in the shadows to see Chloe and Rachel together, she asks herself if she could break them up without making Chloe unhappy or if she could create a good timeline without Rachel being alive, before turning around and asking herself how she could think about something like that.</p><p>Then one day Rachel was in her room and Max wasn’t sure what she should do.</p><p>It had been a normal day till then, as normal as life could be for her anyways, avoiding Victoria with her powers, who for some reason didn’t leave her alone, not talking to anyone, Nathan staring at her a look that could have been mistaken with pity, with knowledge (and Max knew he once again remembered more than either of them wanted him too) and her than walking alone to her room to probably stay there for the rest of the day, doing nothing.</p><p>But then she opened her door, there she was: Rachel Amber, sitting on the floor in her room, looking shocked, at a photo of her and Frank (wasn’t easy to steal that from David) and some letters she wrote to him.</p><p>Max had never known Rachel in the original Timeline and there weren’t that many Timelines later where Rachel was alive, then they were so far apart from each other that every time they did meet Max had changed more and more. In other words: Max had no idea what to expect from the girl in front of her.</p><p>She considered asking Rachel when she got there, rewinding and stopping her from entering, however, she could let this play out. After all, it was better to see things to the end, if it gets to bad she could still go back. Maybe that was why she didn’t panic. Max has reached a point where things just don’t matter anymore, not when you can change them anyways when you want to.</p><p>So, she simply said down on her bed, only as it creaked in response seemed Rachel even to realize she wasn’t alone in the room anymore. Both of them looked into each others eyes, Rachel seemed confused and that seemed to get stronger when she didn’t see anger or panic in Max, but only interest and curiosity.</p><p>“How did you get those?”, she finally started, getting angry. “Does that matter? I have them and copies of them as well”, and that Hard drive was well hidden under 20 others. ”Why? I don’t even-”, Rachel now sounded more desperate. Don’t even see him anymore? She knew that. Max remembered how she imagined Rachel to be once, in the first Timeline, oh how wrong she was about this “perfect” girl. Well, Max knew by now how imperfect “perfect” can be.</p><p>“Maybe I show them Chloe one day, maybe I don’t”, why lie? There was no point. “I am still not sure if being with you is better for her or not...”, Max truly wasn’t, Chloe was happy enough when she was with Max and it didn’t seem to different with Rachel, however Rachel being missing was always something that weighted Chloe down, no matter what Max did.</p><p>Rachel had no answer for a while: “Why do you even care, you left her! You don’t care-”. “You don’t know anything about me Rachel, especially my feelings for Chloe”, Max interrupted her: “I don’t care about you and Frank, I really don’t, I don’t care if you cheated on Chloe as long as you make her happy!”, she was speaking too much, she will need to rewind probably.</p><p>Rachel looked at her shocked, angry and confused at the same time. Then Rachel looked at the wall behind Max and her eyes seemed to widen, and she froze. Max followed her sight, and immediately knew what was happening. It was the Barn, she wasn’t sure why she had a photo of that place, nothing but pain came from remembering the building that holds the dark room.</p><p>Suddenly Rachel ran out of her room, seemingly scared of something. Max didn’t bother to rewind, Rachel would have a nightmare about the Dark room that night, a place she had never seen, and not even a rewind would have prevented that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I know the ending is kinda weird, but I figured it was the best way to end it.</p><p>I might make more stories set in this Timeline, since Max deserves a happy ending and exploring a Max that is just curios to how things could be differen tis fun. A lot of fix it fics just set her in a Timeline with everyone alive and her relationships perfect, I wanted to look into how she maybe has to work forward to that, as well as those around her.</p><p>Also I think Rachel/Chloe/Max would be the endgame here.</p><p>Though Rachel has to better herself and Max really has to learn how to life again.</p><p>Also yeah, others can get memories from other timelines, though they mostly don’t realise that, they are mostly emotions and dreams. Sometimes they activly remember things, it is a random thing (Nathan has some here and generaly knows some of the stuff that is going on)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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